Saturday, 16 June 2012

Gordon Brown has just gone up in my estimation

Not by much, I quickly add....

However, his recent article on the Reuters website is remarkable. It sets out, in the starkest terms, the dangers the world economy faces. Click here to read it. Forget about the man, think about what he is saying.

Here are a few of my favourite quotes:

Eurozone leadership

The standard, but often empty, language of summit communiqués will simply not do when the euro area is finally approaching its own day of reckoning.

Greece

Whichever way the Greeks vote in Sunday’s election, a chaotic exit from the euro is becoming more likely: Its tax revenues are collapsing, not rising as promised.

Spain

(T)he Spanish bank recap cannot work and the euro area is being pushed inexorably toward its moment of truth and the fundamental weakness at the heart of the original design of the euro – that no bank bailout can resolve.

Financing difficulties in the Eurozone banking system

Yet Europe’s financial sector has an even bigger problem: their banks still have 24 trillion euros of outstanding loans, as against America’s $14 trillion (11 trillion euros), and because of their size, they depend on wholesale financing, which is starting to dry up.

Eurozone solutions to the crisis

And every time now that the euro area attempts a new set of well-meaning half-measures – further recaps, bank deposit guarantees and the latest “solution,” a banking union – without facing up to the fundamental issue, it makes the endgame even more painful.